Since it aired in 2003, NCIS has had so many storylines and characters that it can be a bit jarring to go back to the first season. So, let's take a few moments and remember a few of the forgotten things from the first season of NCIS.
Let's go back to the very beginning. No, we're not talking about Yankee White, the first episode of season one. We're going all the way back to Ice Queen, the episode of the legal drama JAG, which first introduced Gibbs, Abby, Tony, and Ducky.
The characters appeared on two episodes of JAG that served as a backdoor pilot for NCIS, which was conceived as an investigative crime drama series in the same universe.
Vivian Viv Blackadder was a former FBI agent, with an incredible name, who was working for NCIS before the events of the first season. In the two backdoor pilot episodes, Viv was shown to be a determined, but clumsy, agent.
Despite being a central player during the backdoor pilot, the character of Viv never made the leap to the main series. According to an oral history of NCIS on TV Insider, series co-creator Donald P. Bellisario thought the character was too soft and decided to nix her from the show.
While Vivian may be a character that you missed out on seeing, don't worry - there are plenty of other familiar faces that you'd recognize today. The first season of the show is full of guest appearances from actors who went on to become very well-known TV stars.
In the episode Enigma, Terry O'Quinn plays Gibbs' former commanding officer, who disappears with millions of dollars of Saddam Hussein's money. Josh Holloway has a smaller role as a cocky local sheriff who gets on Gibbs' bad side on the episode My Other Left Foot.
fanjoy: They fell into the trap of trying to keep all the characters locked in, not allowed to change -- forcing characters like Abby and Tony to remain comic relief way past the point of believability. The lack of professionalism would cost them their jobs, much less Gibb's physical abuse (head slaps, failure to follow protocols and legal procedures and chain of command, not to mention the constant need to create more dramatic tension by encouraging vigilantism and personal vendettas and ever bigger explosions or story arcs to foster higher ratings during sweeps weeks. Abby and Tony both deserved better story lines and more consistency in character growth and development. Date: 2020-12-26
